Senior Seminar in Aviation

            The beginning of the use of drones was around the first world war. The first drones were catapult launched or remote operated and starting in 1935, the British used them for target practice (IWM Staff, 2018). During World War I, a secret US program run in Long Island, New York had looked at the use of aircraft drones as kamikaze drones, with TNT strapped to them and set to explode upon impact. “The planes were ‘automatically guided with a high degree of precision’ and after a predetermined distance were supposed to suddenly turn and fly vertically downward, carrying enough TNT to ‘blow a small town inside out’” (Sifton, 2012). This aircraft was called the ‘Kettering Bug’ and used gyroscopic controls (Vyas, 2018). Unfortunately, the Kettering Bug wasn’t tested until the war ended in 1918 and at that point, there would be no continued development because there was no longer a war to use it for. Starting in World War II, “the Navy launched a...

1.       The current ATC system utilizes a system of radar and transponders for position reporting and other various parameters. The new Nextgen system will allow for exact position reporting via the ADS-B system and other components. ATC will have an exact GPS reported location of an aircraft, along with other information surrounding the aircraft, such as weather conditions and other aircraft. Because aircraft positions are no longer dependent upon radar, ATC will have a reduction in or removal of dead zones, particularly near mountains, Due to the nature of this new system being GPS based, the National Airspace System (NAS) can be improved with more optimal routes, resulting in a reduction of “flying time, fuel use, and aircraft exhaust emissions while getting passengers to their destinations at more predictable times. NextGen significantly improves overall capacity, performance, efficiency, and predictability throughout the NAS” (How NextGen Works, 2017)....